Marta Cheng | Self-Publishing Review

The Samui Conspiracy (Conspiracy Series Book 2) by Michael Peart

The Samui Conspiracy by Michael Peart is the entertaining sequel to the breezy legal thriller, The Fanling Conspiracy, and the last installment in the series.

Solicitor Ben McCann moved to Koh Samui, a tropical island off the coast of Thailand, five years ago and has just merged his modest firm with a large Bangkok law firm. Ben is summarily told that their newest client, BAS Petroleum, intends to start drilling for oil in nearby Koh Tao and he’s tasked with persuading Alex Wattana, the President of the Thailand Oil Commission, to grant BAS the licence to drill. Ben immediately […]

Marta Cheng2018-06-25T12:28:52+02:00June 25th, 2018|Categories: New Releases|Tags: Legal Thriller, Thriller Book Reviews|

The Fanling Conspiracy (Conspiracy Series Book 1) by Michael Peart

A fun and witty thriller, The Fanling Conspiracy is the first in the Conspiracy Series by Michael Peart, appropriately dubbed “A light-hearted legal thriller.”

Roberts McCann, the firm Ben McCann started five years ago with his best friend, Dylan Roberts, is financially struggling and needs an influx of money. It looks as though Ben’s prayers are answered when a new client, representing a local Hong Kong clan, retains the firm to get back the Fanling temple from the corrupt government, but things quickly turn into a nightmare when the trial judge is stabbed to death and Tyler Scott, a solicitor […]

Marta Cheng2018-06-25T11:43:58+02:00June 25th, 2018|Categories: New Releases|Tags: Legal Thriller, Thriller Book Reviews|

Review: Where Wolves Talk by D.L. Lewis

In Where Wolves Talk, the first in a two-part fantasy, D.L. Lewis invites young readers to suspend belief in order to take part in an epic adventure to a mystical world of talking animals and grey monsters.

Kitten, an American Shorthair Silver Classic tabby breed, was born deformed, but despite his deformities, he nevertheless lives a charmed life in a mansion in the countryside northeast of London, dining in style on fresh salmon flown in by helicopter from a Scottish loch and poached by his mistress’ own Swiss chef, followed by hunks of blue-veined Stilton served on an antique […]

Marta Cheng2018-07-12T11:21:47+02:00June 19th, 2018|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Fantasy Book Reviews, Middle Grade Fiction Book Reviews|

Review: Chanting the Feminine Down by James C. McCullagh

Religion and history are the driving forces behind Chanting the Feminine Down, a novel of psychological awakening by James McCullagh with Roy McCullagh.

Colette McGovern is an intelligent graduate student with a secret. She’s committed a mortal sin in the eyes of God and now she’s plagued by stark, dramatic and disturbing “tumbleweed dreams,” as she calls them. One of them, about the late Pope John Paul II, wearing lace – who slowly sinks into the ground, no less – is particularly powerful and vivid. Colette records all her dreams in her journal, even going so far as to […]

Marta Cheng2018-07-05T11:52:57+02:00June 12th, 2018|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Literary Fiction Book Reviews, Visionary Fiction Book Reviews|

Review: Chasing the Red Queen by Karen Glista

Chippewa legends and vampirical lore make for interesting bedfellows in Chasing the Red Queen, an edgy YA paranormal romance by Karen Glista.

Sixteen-year-old Donja Bellanger is devastated to be leaving behind her childhood home and all those she holds dear to start a new life in another town, thanks to her mother’s marriage to widower, Carson Hampton. Worse yet, she’ll have to share a bedroom with Carson’s privileged daughter, Makayla, during renovations to the old manor into which they just moved.

Surprisingly, the two girls quickly become fast friends, bonding over their tragic loss of a parent, and on […]

Marta Cheng2020-02-21T07:14:31+02:00April 20th, 2018|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: Paranormal Romance, Young Adult Book Reviews|

Review: Mnemosyne’s Daughters by Brit Chism

Mnemosyne’s Daughters is a thought-provoking collection of modern day short stories inspired by Greek mythology that author, Brit Chism, uses to highlight social issues affecting women in today’s society.

Told from a surprisingly male perspective, there are nine short stories in all – a few somewhat blandly titled after women. Then there are the rest, like “Alice Silver-Blue Hair and the Saints,” “Elysian Fields Next Exit,” “Mnemosyne’s Daughters,” “Layla and the Rage,” and “Medea Royal,” each of which express the author’s robust imagination that is evident throughout this collection.

At the heart of each story are women from all walks […]

Marta Cheng2019-01-22T11:13:27+02:00April 18th, 2018|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: Short Stories Book Reviews, Women's Fiction Book Reviews|

Review: I’m Going to Kill That Cat by F. Della Notte

F. Della Notte’s cozy mystery, I’m Going to Kill That Cat, is a highly entertaining whodunit with a feline twist.

Father Melvyn Kronkey is devoted to his clerical duties at Saint Frances de Sales Church, and to his widowed housekeeper Mrs. B.’s marvelous cooking. Life is good until the longstanding antagonism between two of his older parishioners, Martha and Velma, culminates in a heated confrontation, thanks to an unexpected fall Martha blames on Velma’s cat. Martha angrily threatens to kill Velma’s cat but it’s Velma who turns up dead a short time later. Not surprisingly, Martha becomes the police’s prime […]

Marta Cheng2019-12-11T08:11:09+02:00April 16th, 2018|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Mystery Book Reviews|

Review: Culling the Herd by Edward R. Etzkorn

The seemingly innocuous phrase, “The few for the many,” proves to be a chilling mantra in Culling the Herd, a riveting thriller by Edward R. Etzkorn.

Tired of her four-year stint as women’s health editor for a second-rate magazine, Chloe Freestaff left the jungles of New York City twelve months earlier for the harshness of Kenya’s Mwenga National Game Reserve. Now nearing the end of her tenure, Chloe learns that an old African tradesman has stumbled upon “something evil” inside the game reserve. The long-suppressed journalist in Chloe smells a story, and she convinces him to show her what […]

Marta Cheng2018-06-19T06:09:55+02:00April 11th, 2018|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Thriller Book Reviews|